Wednesday, December 29, 2010

2010 was a good year for Philips Publishing Group, and for Fishermen’s News and I write today to thank all of you whose support helped us achieve this success.

The fishing industry is a wonderful place to work, mostly because of the special character of those who work in it.

Whether born into the industry as my brother Chris and I were, or otherwise drawn to it, most of us are involved in it because we were called to it. As a result, the relationships we make are all the more satisfying because they are made in the furtherance of shared goals and values.

My father, Dick Philips, edited Fishermen’s News in the 70’s and early 80’s. He felt it important that he use his position to not only write about the fishing industry, but also to actively advocate on behalf of the independent commercial fishing fleet that makes up our readership.

When my brother Chris and I founded Philips Publishing Group in 2000, we based our company on the core values our father instilled in us: ethical, truthful and complete reporting of the issues and championing the causes that benefit the fishing industry and the communities that the industry supports.

Entering our 66th year of publication, Fishermen’s News continues as the voice of that advocacy.

We look forward to continuing to promote the West Coast independent commercial fishermen through Fishermen’s News, through our professional conferences and through the civic involvement of Philips Publishing Group staff.

And, we look forward to working with all of you who also advocate on behalf of our industry; educating the regulators, legislators, policymakers, environmental special interests, and the general business public about the economic value our industry represents and the social and cultural importance of the maritime and commercial fishing industries to the North American West Coast.

We wish you and your family a Happy and Prosperous New Year and look forward to seeing you next year on the waterfront.

Marine ecologists at Oregon State University have shown for the first time that tiny fish larvae can drift with ocean currents and “re-seed” fish stocks significant distances away – more than 100 miles in a new study from Hawaii.

The findings add credibility to what scientists have believed for some time, but until now been unable to directly document. The study also provides a significant demonstration of the ability of marine reserves to rebuild fishery stocks in areas outside the reserves.

The research was published this week in PLoS One, a scientific journal.

“We already know that marine reserves will grow larger fish and some of them will leave that specific area, what we call spillover,” said Mark Hixon, a professor of marine biology at OSU. “Now we’ve clearly shown that fish larvae that were spawned inside marine reserves can drift with currents and replenish fished areas long distances away.

“This is a direct observation, not just a model, that successful marine reserves can sustain fisheries beyond their borders,” he said. “That’s an important result that should help resolve some skepticism about reserves. And the life cycle of our study fish is very similar to many species of marine fish, including rockfishes and other species off Oregon. The results are highly relevant to other regions."

The findings were based on the creation in 1999 of nine marine protected areas on the west coast of the "big island" of Hawaii. They were set up in the face of serious declines of a beautiful tropical fish called yellow tang, which formed the basis for an important trade in the aquarium industry.

“This fishery was facing collapse about 10 years ago,” Hixon said. “Now, after the creation of marine reserves, the fishery is doing well.”

The yellow tang was an ideal fish to help answer the question of larval dispersal because once its larvae settle onto a reef and begin to grow, they are not migratory, and live in a home range about half a mile in diameter. If the fish are going to move any significant distance from where they are born, it would have to be as a larva – a young life form about the size of a grain of rice – drifting with the currents for up to two months before settling back to adult habitats.

Mark Christie, an OSU postdoctoral research associate and lead author of the study, developed some new approaches to the use of DNA fingerprinting and sophisticated statistical analysis that were able to match juvenile fish with their parents, wherever they may have been from. In field research from 2006, the scientists performed genetic and statistical analyses on 1,073 juvenile and adult fish, and found evidence that many healthy juvenile fish had spawned from parents long distances away, up to 114 miles, including some from marine protected areas.

“This is similar to the type of forensic technology you might see on television, but more advanced,” Christie said. “We’re optimistic it will help us learn a great deal more about fish movements, fishery stocks, and the genetic effects of fishing, including work with steelhead, salmon, rockfish and other species here in the Pacific Northwest.”

This study should help answer some of the questions about the ability of marine reserves to help rebuild fisheries, the scientists said. It should also add scientific precision to the siting of reserves for that purpose, which is just one of many roles that a marine reserve can play. Many states are establishing marine reserves off their coasts, and Oregon is in the process of developing a limited network of marine reserves to test their effectiveness. The methods used in this study could also become a powerful new tool to improve fisheries management, Hixon said.

“Tracking the movement of fish larvae in the open ocean isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do,” Hixon said. “It’s not like putting a radio collar on a deer. This approach will provide valuable information to help optimize the placement of reserves, identify the boundaries of fishery stocks, and other applications.”

The issue of larval dispersal is also important, the researchers say, because past studies at OSU have shown that large, fat female fish produce massive amounts of eggs and sometimes healthier larvae than smaller fish. For example, a single two-foot vermillion rockfish produces more eggs than 17 females that are 14 inches long.

But these same large fish, which have now been shown to play key roles in larval production and fish population replenishment, are also among those most commonly sought in fisheries.

The study was done in collaboration with the University of Hawaii, Washington State University, National Marine Fisheries Services and the Hawaii Department of Natural Resources. It was funded by Conservation International.

“The identification of connectivity between distant reef fish populations on the island of Hawaii demonstrates that human coastal communities are also linked,” the researchers wrote in their conclusion. “Management in one part of the ocean affects people who use another part of the ocean.”

Atlantis Japan, a wholly owned subsidiary of Atlantis Group, seafood company and majority owner of Umami Sustainable Seafood (OTCBB "UMAM"), the largest global producer of Northern bluefin tuna, has acquired a 75% stake in Prime Time Seafood Inc.

Prime Time Seafood, Inc. is a Los Angeles based, California corporation established in 1988. It specializes in the grading and distribution of fresh tuna. The company currently imports Tuna from all over the world and supplies it to customers throughout the United States and Canada. It is based in Los Angeles.

In announcing the acquisition, Oli Valur Steindorsson, the CEO of Atlantis Group and Umami stated: “Prime Time Seafood will serve as a reinforcement to our already strong seafood marketing operations. Prime Time will serve as our foothold and launchpad in the US market. With sustainability issues being firmly dealt with we believe that a large market for bluefin tuna will be opening up in the US, California especially”.

Rex Ito, founder and CEO of Prime Time Seafood stated: “The combination of Atlantis' resources and farmed fish through Umami, together with Prime Time's experience and knowledge in the tuna market will be highly beneficial for both parties. In addition to enhancing current operations and farmed bluefin distribution, Prime Time and Atlantis are also developing closed life-cycle production of other popular marine finfish in our operations in Ensenada, Mexico”.

Marine Refrigeration WorkshopsAlaska Sea Grant MAP, Washington Sea Grant and IMS will be co-sponsoring one-day workshops in Alaska & Washington in February, March and April. This one-day workshop is designed to familiarize skippers and crew with basic onboard marine refrigeration system theory, maintenance, safety and troubleshooting. System sizing, log keeping, startup and winterization topics will also be covered. Participants will do supervised hands-on activities.Sign up early … space is limited! You will find a printable flyer plus links to sign up for the workshops at the new IMS website: www.IMSpacific.com

Port Townsend Workshops will be held Saturday March 12th and Saturday April 16th. To sign up, contact: Sarah Fisken at Washington Sea Grant, sfisken@u.washington.edu / 206.543.122

Alaska Workshops will be held in Petersburg: Tuesday, February 1st and in Anchorage: Tuesday, March 29th.

The fee for the workshop is $80. Space is limited, so pre-registration is advised. To register or for more information, contact Sarah Fisken, WSG Marine Education Coordinator, at (206) 543-1225 or sfisken@u.washington.edu.

On December 15, the Obama administration officially announced its support for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to build a peripheral canal/tunnel, a project opposed by fishermen, Indian Tribes, environmentalists, family farmers and Delta residents.

A coordinated report issued by six federal agencies calls for the construction of a "new water conveyance system" - the peripheral canal/tunnel - to move water from north of the California Bay-Delta to corporate agribusiness on the side of the San Joaquin Valley and to Southern California water agencies.

The federal report, which complements a related report issued Wednesday by the Schwarzenegger administration, urges "continued progress toward completion of the California Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) and supports major elements of the plan as a promising means of addressing the critical needs of both the Bay-Delta ecosystem and the state’s water delivery structure," according a news release from the Department of Interior.

"After years of drought, growing stress on water supplies, and with the Bay-Delta in full environmental collapse, it has become clear to everyone that the status quo for California's water infrastructure is no longer an option," said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar.

Salazar went on to praise Governor Schwarzenegger for developing "forward-thinking solutions," in spite of the fact the Schwarzenegger administration has presided over the collapse of Central Valley chinook salmon, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, green sturgeon, Sacramento splittail and young striped bass populations and the exporting of record amounts of Delta water from 2004 to 2006.

"Governor Schwarzenegger and the State of California have worked tirelessly and in partnership with us to develop responsible, forward-thinking solutions that can help us break the cycle of shortages and water conflicts," Salazar said. "This is the moment to push forward with solutions, apply the best science available, and build a water future for California that is good for our economy, guards against the impacts of catastrophic earthquakes and other natural disasters, and helps restore California's Bay-Delta to health.”

Nancy Sutley, Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke also lauded the release of the "coordinated report."

“Through the Interim Federal Action Plan for the Bay Delta, the Obama Administration has made significant progress working with California to address the State’s complex and long-standing water issues," stated Sutley. "However, there is still much more work to do. Finalizing a Bay Delta Conservation Plan is a key part of establishing a long-term sustainable future for California’s water system. Any solution must address the dual goals of water supply reliability and ecosystem health, be science-based, and be developed with the full engagement of stakeholders. We look forward to working with Governor-Elect Brown to continue and accelerate our progress.”

“Over the long-term, rebuilding the ecology of the Delta and securing the reliability of California's water delivery systems carries huge promise for growing jobs across California, from the salmon-dependent fishing communities of coastal California to the farming communities of the Central Valley to Los Angeles basin,” said Locke. “We will continue to focus on critical next steps, including applying the best scientific research available to inform sound decisions and long-term planning."

Locke failed to indicate how two mutually exclusive goals - restoring salmon populations and the jobs that depend on them and providing increased, more "reliable" supplies of water for unsustainable corporate agribusiness on drainage impaired land and land developers in southern California - can be achieved at the same time.

A crowd of concerned fishermen, environmentalists and others filled the chambers of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors earlier this month to share their complaints, ideas and worries with Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"Catch shares are just one tool, and I believe they are a valuable tool if they are well-dispersed," said Lubchenco.

However, many fishermen who spoke Thursday believe catch shares will mean the end of their livelihoods.

"There are six trawl fishermen in Fort Bragg, and all are concerned (whether) they are going to be able to stay in business," said Daniel Platt of Fort Bragg, while another fisherman from Fort Bragg had similar concerns.

"I take issue with catch shares being described as only one tool. According to the (Pacific Fishery Management Council), that is the tool," said Tom Estes, who said he shares a family fleet with his sons. "The more we talk, the more frightened I get. My son says that this might be the nail in the coffin, and I agree."

Vivian Helliwell described catch shares as "social engineering and market manipulation" that "the little guys always lose out on." She added that they would take the "fishing out of our community," and "mean the end of the fishing industry on the West Coast."

Dusty Dillon, who said he was a property owner in Fort Bragg, provided the crowd with some comic relief when he suggested to Lubchenco that, "we've got a lot of empty buildings if you'd like to open a local office. We're trying to revitalize our waterfront."

Other speakers urged Lubchenco to rescind the permit NOAA recently granted to the US Navy to begin five years of "warfare testing and exercises" in the Northwest Training Range Complex, which includes Northern California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

Lubchenco then took 10 minutes to address the numerous concerns raised.

"Thank you for your heartfelt, respectful and passionate comments, which give me hope that we can find solutions for the majority of these issues," she said. "I share many of the concerns that many of you raised, and you've also put new issues on our radar."

As for catch shares, Lubchenco said, "I urge you to keep an open mind. The results depend on the design of the catch share program, which is a much more powerful tool for creating sustainable fisheries than the traditional management.- www.savingseafood.org

Communities around Washington State will receive $20.7 million in state grants to fix damaged rivers and streams, replace failing culverts and replant riverbanks with the goal of helping recover salmon from the brink of extinction, the Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board announced last week.

“Salmon are an important part of Washington’s economy and culture. These grants will do two things,” said Steve Tharinger, chairman of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board. “They will help put people to work improving our environment, and they will help us protect and restore salmon populations important to communities across Washington.”

The grants will fund big and small restoration projects across the state, including planting trees along streams to cool the water enough so salmon can survive, replacing culverts that currently prevent salmon from migrating to and from spawning habitat and restoring entire floodplains and estuaries. The grants are estimated to create or continue about 250 jobs in the next four years.

Local watershed groups develop these projects based on regional recovery plans, which are approved by the federal government. Individual projects are reviewed by regional salmon recovery organizations and the state’s technical review panel to make sure each project will help recover salmon in the most cost-effective manner.

“This local, state, and federal partnership has made Washington a national model in salmon recovery,” Tharinger said.

In 1991, the federal government declared the first salmon, Snake River sockeye, as endangered. By the end of that decade, the federal government had designated 16 more species of salmon as at-risk of extinction, covering three-quarters of the state. Those listings set off a series of activities including the formation of the Salmon Recovery Funding Board to oversee the investment of state and federal funds for salmon recovery. Since 2000, the board has awarded nearly $417 million in grants, funded by federal and state dollars, for 1,775 projects. Grantees have contributed more than $189 million in matching resources.

Funding for the grants announced today comes from the federal Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. The funding for these grants was approved by Congress earlier this year.Information about the Salmon Recovery Funding Board and the Recreation and Conservation Office is available online at www.rco.wa.gov.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The California Sea Grant College Program is now seeking applications for the 2011 National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS)–Sea Grant Joint Graduate Fellowship Programs in Population Dynamics and Marine Resource Economics.

These are national competitions, and applicants should contact the Sea Grant program in their state (or closest to them). See www.seagrant.noaa.gov/colleges for locations of Sea Grant programs and contact information.

The award for each fellowship is contingent upon the availability of federal funds and will be in the form of a grant or cooperative agreement of $38,500 per year.

Formal announcements of the fellowships have been published in the Federal Register and the complete Federal Funding Opportunity can be accessed through the links provided on the California Sea Grant website: www.csgc.ucsd.edu/EDUCATION/SeaGrantFellows.html

National Marine Fisheries Service–Sea Grant Joint Graduate Fellowship Program in Population DynamicsThe Graduate Fellowship Program awards at least two new Ph.D. fellowships each year to students who are interested in careers related to the population dynamics of living marine resources and the development and implementation of quantitative methods for assessing their status. Fellows will work on thesis problems of public interest and relevance to NMFS under the guidance of NMFS mentors at participating NMFS Science Centers and Laboratories.

National Marine Fisheries Service–Sea Grant Joint Graduate Fellowship Program in Marine Resource EconomicsThe Graduate Fellowship Program generally awards two new Ph.D. fellowships each year to students who are interested in careers related to the development and implementation of quantitative methods for assessing the economics of the conservation and management of living marine resources. Fellows will work on thesis problems of public interest and relevance to NMFS under the guidance of NMFS mentors at participating NMFS Science Centers and Laboratories.

Southeast Alaska commercial shrimp fishermen may have up to $12,000 from Uncle Sam waiting for them – but only if they sign up before Dec. 23 for a free federal program that provides training for people in industries suffering from foreign competition.

The UAF Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program would host the training workshops in several Panhandle communities where eligible fishermen live.

Alaska’s commercial shrimp fishermen have faced stiff competition from foreign shrimp fishermen and farmers. Because of low prices and lack of markets, only about 100 of the state’s 300 permitted shrimp fishermen actually fished in recent years. Most of the permit-holders live and work in Southeast Alaska.

“Alaska commercial shrimp fishermen have been severely diminished economically in recent years,” said Glenn Haight, fisheries business specialist with the Alaska Sea Grant Marine Advisory Program. “There’s hardly any commercial fishing for shrimp here now. There just isn’t much of a market and the prices are low.”

The compensation and training is being offered through the US Department of Agriculture. To qualify for compensation, fishermen must have caught and landed shrimp in either the pot or beam trawl commercial fishery in 2008 and during at least one of the three previous years. Crew and spouses of eligible permit holders also may qualify.

Of the 100 or so fishermen that may qualify for the free program, Haight said only about ten fishermen have so far signed up for the training. The sign-up deadline is Dec. 23, 2010.

To receive the cash payout, eligible fishermen must enroll and take 16 hours of industry-specific training in order to receive up to $4,000, Haight explained. Following that, eligible fishermen must write a business plan that implements changes to their operations aimed at making them more profitable and competitive, or moves them into a different line of work. Once fishermen complete that, they would get up to $8,000 in additional compensation.

The exact amount of cash shrimp fishermen will receive depends on how many fishermen across the country take advantage of the program. The training and compensation is being offered to shrimp fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico and lobster fishermen in the northeast.

Alaska Sea Grant’s Marine Advisory Program is conducting the Alaska training. Depending on the number of qualified fishermen, the Marine Advisory Program will hold as many as six workshops in Southeast communities. Training will include business management and planning, state and global seafood markets, direct seafood marketing, fisheries management, financial management and other related topics.

The deadline to sign up is Dec. 23, 2010. Signups must be done through the Alaska USDA Farm Service Agency. To learn more about the program, contact any of the following people:

Two University of Southern California biology professors and a California Sea Grant marine advisor have been awarded $394,000 in a national aquaculture research competition sponsored by NOAA Sea Grant.

The two-year award will fund genetic studies and field tests of a newly developed double-hybrid Pacific oyster that the biologists believe can transform the West Coast’s $72-million-a-year oyster growing industry.

“This research is of great interest to us,” says Jonathan Davis of Taylor Shellfish Farms, one of the region’s largest shellfish growers and a collaborator on the project. “We believe we can leverage grant resources into a new product stream of high-yielding Pacific oysters.”

The new oyster, 15 years in the making, is produced through a two-stage cross-breeding process that confers “hybrid vigor”– superior growth, size and health – to its tasty offspring, says the project’s leader, USC biology professor Dennis Hedgecock. In small-scale experiments funded by the US Department of Agriculture, the first generation hybrid oyster was shown to grow twice as fast as the industry standard, meaning that farm yields could potentially double, too.

The NOAA Sea Grant award will allow Hedgecock and grant co-recipient Donal Manahan, also a biology professor at USC, to identify genes and metabolic processes responsible for hybrid vigor in the oyster and to use what is learned to develop a tag for identifying, within the first few hours of birth, offspring with desired traits.

This early-detection tool will enable researchers to continue experimenting with breeding bigger and better Pacific oysters rapidly, without having to wait two years for the oysters to reach maturity and undergo normal testing.

The Pacific oyster, whose scientific name Crassostrea gigas means “giant cupped oyster,” is the species selected for the hybrid breeding program, as it accounts for about 95 percent of the West Coast’s cultured oyster product and about 98 percent of total global production.

Paul Olin, an aquaculture specialist and marine advisor with California Sea Grant, is overseeing the soon-to-begin farm trials, to document the oyster’s performance under in-situ environmental conditions representative of California’s varying coastal climes. The Hog Island Oyster Company in Tomales Bay, Grassy Bar Oyster Company in Morro Bay and Carlsbad Aquafarm in northern San Diego County are participating in these trials.

Olin will make sure that the new oyster and control groups are properly matched, identified and separated from each other. He will also collect data on yields, production costs and return on investment for the trials.

“We want to demonstrate to oyster growers that science translates to the bottom line,” Hedgecock says. “We want to show them that a better seed is a better business.”

"Our objective is, within a couple of years, to be up to 5,000 tons of (annual) production in our existing sites around our Benxi hatchery," said Richard Buchanan, president and CEO of AgriMarine, Inc. at the second China Sustainable Seafood Forum, in Dalian, China, Nov. 1.

Located in the Guangmanshan Reservoir, outside of Benxi and about 200 miles north of Dalian, the AgriMarine farm is the result of almost a decade of research started to find a solution to the lice, pollution and other problems facing traditional net pen salmon farms in Canada.

Headquartered in Campbell River, British Columbia, AgriMarine began putting the results of its research to work in China in September of 2009 when it began farming Steelhead trout in Guangmanshan.

Steelhead, which are native to China, were chosen because of their existing markets and because feed formulations were readily available. AgriMarine began selling its Steelhead in Beijing and Shanghai this fall, one year after they were planted in the Guangmanshan tanks, Buchanan said.

"Our first harvests commenced this September and we've harvested between 30 and 50 tons already since the beginning of September," Buchanan said at the forum.

"Our main market so far has been the five-star hotels that are already using Norwegian salmon. The Norwegians have done a good job of marketing for us and we're providing an alternative that is one day from the pen to the hotel," he added.

Chinook, which are expected to take about 15 months to reach five kilogram-and-up market size, will be AgriMarine's main product, with coho and Atlantic salmon joining its menu in the future as the company targets a more lucrative Chinese audience. Each tank is projected to yield 250 metric tons per 15-month cycle.

"The China market is used to the Norwegian salmon being very large and the trout are only half the size. It limits our market for them and even though it may be a wider market, but the market we're targeting with the hotels is size," Buchanan explained.

"This year we'll import one million Canadian-sourced ova to our hatchery in China which represents about 4,000 metric tons of production when they become whole fish," Buchanan said during my exclusive tour of the Benxi farm, Oct. 29. The first eggs to arrive in China, raised for some seven months in its Benxi hatchery, were being planted at the Guangmanshan farm as each of what will eventually be ten tanks is completed.

"A year from right now we'll be harvesting our salmon," Buchanan said. What has been a research and development facility at Campbell River was also on track to become a commercial Chinook farm with tank construction expected to be completed by the end of November. A second farm in China, about 200 miles north of Benxi in another reservoir near the city of Siping, is also in early development.

Buchanan said overall expansion will be measured and is limited mainly by the 24-hour limit on transport of fingerlings from the Benxi hatchery, and by the availability of fresh, cool and clean water. Guangmanshan Reservoir is several miles long and boats are not allowed on it so that the water is "pristine" according to Buchanan. The farm does not filter the water before sending it into tanks, nor does it use pesticides or antibiotics.

The reservoir freezes over in winter and the colder weather will slow fish growth, but AgriMarine operations will continue year round because the water in the tanks, maintained at a temperature of 39° Fahrenheit, is continually circulated. In summer water is pumped from the depths of the 150-foot deep reservoir to keep tank temperatures sufficiently cool.

"It's a perfect environment to grow fish in a closed-containment system," Buchanan said.

Fish eggs are the only part of the AgriMarine operation not produced in China. The 24-meter diameter, 7-meter deep fiberglass composite tanks are produced in Shenyang, an hour's drive from Benxi. Tanks comprise 24 pie-shaped wedges with a central floor drain that collects feces and minimal amounts of unconsumed feed, which will be pumped to shore for use as fertilizer in this corn-growing region.

Tanks are neutrally buoyant. The first two were assembled onshore and lowered into the reservoir with cranes, but Chinese commercial divers convinced AgriMarine they could assemble the units in the water, which produced a 20 percent construction cost savings.

All the tanks are held in place with a dock system, linked through buoys to anchors, which also contains control and mechanical units for water circulation and oxygenation pumps and subsurface cameras that monitor feed consumption. The three million liters (792,516 gallons) of water in each tank is refreshed every hour and water circulation speed is increased as fish age.

"Hydraulics is very important in closed containment to make sure oxygen is distributed and that the swim speed is perfect for the fish. (It) also provides a healthier flesh because the fish are exercising. The flesh is much firmer than what I've experienced in net cage farming," Buchanan said, based on his ten years of net pen farming.

Including mechanical systems, each tank cost about $300,000 to build. For year-round production a farm will require eight grow-out tanks plus two more where salmon ready for market will be held without feeding for two days for final conditioning that eliminates feces and excess fat.

AgriMarine has partnered with distributors in Beijing and Shanghai that import Norwegian salmon for the five-start hotels. "We've established contractual relationships with these distributors so they're introducing the home-grown large finfish, trout and salmon grown in China, alongside Norwegian fish so the buyers, the hotel chefs can see the difference," Buchanan said.

The buyers, he said, "notice the difference between Pacifics and Atlantics. The feedback we're getting is in the freshness and taste... They say it's got a much more flavor and freshness than the Norwegian fish."

Among the differences they noticed was the absence of the white fat stripes that are a hallmark of Norwegian salmon. "We had some feedback last week from some restaurants in Beijing that tried our fish. They wanted to know why there weren't stripes in them," Buchanan said in October.

Norwegian farms, and a New York investor that owns Puget Sound farms have taken note of AgriMarine's technology, which could become the world standard. "We're talking to Norway because Norway owns BC farms so there's a fit," Buchanan said.

AgriMarine is also in the early stages of marketing what Buchanan called its "eco-salmon" in British Columbia and wrestling the issue of how to distinguish its new system from sustainably certified net pen farms.

"World wide, we are the only company with this type of technology that can convert a net cage production to large scale closed-containment production ... The question is, if net cages can comply with aquaculture guidelines what distinguishes closed containment ... Is there a higher standard if you have closed containment and still meet the world standard for aquaculture?" he asked.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Congressman Walter Jones (R-NC) wrote to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco last week raising concerns about NOAA plans for reforming the agency's use of funds derived from fines and forfeited assets from fishermen.

Congressman Jones called it "extremely troubling that the agency's draft policy would allow proceeds from fines, penalties and forfeitures from fishermen to be used to pay the salaries of the Administrative Law Judges (ALJ) deciding cases brought against fishermen. Not only is this use of funds not authorized by the Magnuson-Stevens Act, it is terrible policy. The right to a trial before an unbiased, impartial judge is a bedrock principle of our democracy. If fisheries law judges are compensated with money from judgments against fishermen, the appearance, if not the practice, of impartiality is fundamentally compromised."

The Congressman pointed out that in a recent Inspector General-commissioned audit of the NOAA Fisheries Asset Forfeiture Fund (AFF) found extensive waste, fraud and abuse by the agency. The audit found that NOAA Fisheries "administered the AFF in a manner that is neither transparent nor conducive to accountability, thus rendering it susceptible to both error and abuse." It also found that NOAA Fisheries used the AFF extensively "to cover a variety of expenses which do not appear to be '...directly related to investigations and civil or criminal enforcement proceedings," which they are required to be by law. Such expenditures include over $500,000 spent on international travel in the past four and a half years. Other expenditures include $4.6 million for the purchase of 200 vehicles for only 172 enforcement personnel, including a vehicle for former OLE Director, Dale Jones, who would "ride the train to his office free of charge, by virtue of his status as an armed law enforcement officer,"; $2.7 million for the purchase of vessels, including $300,000 for an undercover vessel that the manufacturer's website described as "luxurious" with a "beautifully appointed cabin"; and dozens of purchase card transactions that were either improper, fraudulent or duplicative.

The Congressman praised the parts of agency's draft policy which prohibit the use of AFF funds for:

funding for NOAA employee labor, benefits, or awards;

funding for vehicle or vessel purchases or leases;

funding for travel not related to specific investigations or enforcement proceedings; and,

funding for equipment such as computers, blackberries, cell phones and furniture.

United Fishermen of Alaska, representing 38 Alaska commercial fishing organizations, announced its support of Cora Campbell for Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. UFA highlighted Campbell’s wide ranging experience in the state and federal fisheries management processes. UFA members have worked with Campbell during her career as Fisheries Policy Analyst for Governors Parnell and Palin, and the members are keenly aware of the skills she has acquired in the Fish and Game policy and planning process during this period of time.

“Cora has impressed the UFA board with her presentations and public comments. She routinely displays a depth of knowledge of state and federal management processes, the importance of science-base management and the far-reaching effects of fish and game management on Alaska citizens. In addition, although she is well grounded in commercial fisheries, she has extensive experience and knowledge in the federal subsistence management process,” said UFA President Arni Thomson.

“We feel she is uniquely qualified with this broad perspective, and we support Governor Parnell in providing her the opportunity to lead the State’s world class science based management of our fish and game resources,” said Thomson.

Swimming against a current is a challenging exercise, and hatchery fish, it turns out, benefit from the workout, according to the Conservation Fund Freshwater Institute. This seemingly obvious research finding highlights potential shortcomings in raising juvenile hatchery salmon and steelhead in rectangular raceways with little or no current for fish to swim against. It also points the way for hatchery managers in the Northwest to save water while substantially increasing the percentage of the fish they raise that will successfully migrate to the ocean.

The research, conducted by the Chelan County Public Utility District, NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service and The Conservation Fund’s Freshwater Institute at the Eastbank Hatchery near Wenatchee, Washington, compared the effectiveness of raising steelhead and summer Chinook salmon in circular tanks that reuse water to the traditional method of raising the fish in rectangular, flow-through raceways.

The researchers found that the fish raised in the circular reuse systems migrated downstream faster, in greater numbers and with higher survival rates than the fish grown in the raceways. The main difference: the fish raised in the circular tanks swim against a relatively swift current compared to the fish in the raceways. The current is generated as water is pumped through the circular tanks in which the fish are raised.

The circular tanks are part of a system that, depending on the technologies employed, can reuse up to 99 percent of the water in the system. In the pilot project at Eastbank Hatchery the system was designed to use four times less water than the raceway systems. In addition the circular tanks collect and concentrate waste products from the fish and uneaten food, making it easier for hatchery managers to clean their discharge water and meet permit requirements.

“We are really at the early stages here and recognize that hatchery innovations may require many years to prove their effectiveness, but in this case, we are extremely optimistic that water conservation and hatchery supplementation efforts can complement one another. This could be a win-win for hatchery managers and the public alike as we face increasing demands on our water resources” said Joe Miller Hatchery Program Manager for Chelan County Public Utility District.

The researchers applied a high level of scrutiny to the research, knowing that salmon and steelhead hatcheries throughout the Northwest have had a history of unintended consequences.

In addition to migration speed and survival, the researchers looked at the growth, physiology and overall health of fish raised in circular reuse tanks. They determined that there were no indications of significant deleterious side effects and found there was no significant difference in growth, lipid levels, condition factors, or smolt development between the reuse fish and the raceway fish.

The differences were observed when the fish were released. The fish raised in the circular, reuse tanks migrated faster and in greater numbers. They cleared the checkpoint five-days sooner and survived in greater numbers – 72 percent compared to 52 percent -- than the raceway-raised fish.

In addition, the reuse group had far fewer “mini-jacks,” or small, juvenile male salmon that become sexually mature early and stay in the freshwater section of the rivers, rather than migrate to the ocean.

Mini-jacks occur naturally, but in less than 5 percent of the total males. In hatchery raised fish, however, mini-jacks are sometimes as high as 90 percent of the population. Scientists recognize the potential that, over time, mini-jacks from hatcheries could skew the wild population’s genetic makeup toward domesticated qualities found in hatchery fish.

In the recent study, the numbers of mini-jacks produced in the reuse, circular tanks was approximately 1.5 percent of all fish compared to 4.5 percent of all of the raceway fish. In the second year the number of mini-jacks was 6.5 percent of all fish versus 13 percent for the raceway-raised fish.

“Water reuse in circular tanks provides a range of swimming velocities that appears to be beneficial to the fish, and it does so with a far more efficient use of water,” said Dr. Brian Vinci, Director of Engineering Services for the Freshwater Institute, located in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. Vinci has been helping public utility districts in Eastern Washington implement water reuse technologies.

I have been writing about this survey in recent columns so I knew the numbers would be poor from our experience alone. What follows are the August results of the Genetic Stock Identification (GSI) Survey. Half Moon Bay had extremely bleak salmon catch numbers, but some of the other ports did better. What’s better? See for yourself.

The samples were collected by the GSI fishermen, given to the port liaisons, and shipped to the NOAA Southwest Fisheries Laboratory in Santa Cruz, California. There the samples were processed and analyzed by the scientists under the direction of John Carlos Garza, Ph.D. and Eric Crandall, Ph.D.

As with all the ports participating in the survey, we had a certain number of fishing days per month. Each management zone received sixty days a month, which were divided up among the ports in each zone. For example, the San Francisco management zone had 60 days per month to divide between its two ports, 30 days to Half Moon Bay and 30 days to San Francisco.

Management zones with only one port had all 60 days allocated to the one port, as was the case with Ft. Bragg and Bodega Bay. Utilizing different strategies the fishing days were then divided evenly among the boats in each port. In Half Moon Bay any leftover days were distributed among the boats by lottery, allowing each boat at least one extra day.

Latitude lines defined the management zones. In the SF management zone, fishermen from the San Francisco port fished from the northern latitude, Pt. Reyes south to Point San Pedro; Half Moon Bay fishermen fished from Point San Pedro south to Pigeon Point. The Bodega Bay boats fished from Reyes north to Arena, and the Ft. Bragg boats from Arena north to Horse Mountain above Shelter Cove.

Just to give you an idea of how many salmon aren’t out there to be caught, take a look at the following numbers from Ft. Bragg for all of August. Keep in mind that all the GSI fishermen below Arena were fishing mostly closed salmon zones whereas Ft. Bragg had a quota salmon fishery. In July, Ft. Bragg was allowed 18,000 fish from July 15 to the 31st. In August, they were given a quota of 9,000 fish for the entire month. In a normal salmon fishing year (pre 2006), the July quota would be filled in a few days and the August quota would be over in a week. This year neither month came even close to meeting the quota, not even remotely near the number of fish needed to “fill out” the quota. Incidentally, Ft. Bragg was the most productive port of all the ports in the GSI Survey.

Have I got your attention yet? I hope so because this survey was very, very good science and we need to pay close attention to it.

Keep in mind that for August Ft. Bragg fished 117 sample days and the boat average was between 4 and 5 fish per day. Due to constraints on space we’re unable to show the charts, but another interesting finding in the study is the percentage of Central Valley Fall-Run Chinook Salmon caught in August: Ft Bragg had 51.42 percent, Bodega Bay 94.97 percent, San Francisco 99.09 percent, Half Moon Bay 100.0 percent, Santa Cruz/Monterey 90.54 percent. Another thing not included in the preceding information is the number of sub-legals (shorts) in the total catch.

Again for August the ports have the following percentages: Ft Bragg 21 percent sub-legals, Bodega Bay 38 percent, San Francisco 35 percent, Half Moon Bay 50 percent, Santa Cruz/Monterey 17 percent. The concern about the Central Valley Fall-Run Chinook Salmon is that it has been defined as a collapsed run. In reality our retention fisheries (Pt Arena and north) were taking even more fish out of this collapsed run.

What’s next?The guidelines for sampling were that we should fish just as we would commercially, in other words, go for it. I have never fished harder, nor more diligently, to catch a fish than I did this summer during the survey. We continually ran gear, changed gear regularly, tried plugs, tried all flashers and hoochies, tried no flashers and hoochies, we tried hoochies and no flashers.

Sometimes if we caught a fish on a certain spoon, we would change one side to that spoon and back tack over and over that spot to see if the magic would work again. No. Nothing worked. Know why? Because there were so few salmon out there to be caught.

It should also be noted that these fishermen were not rookies. To give you an idea of the experience of the Half Moon Bay GSI fleet: F/V Irene Marie- Irene and I have fished salmon for 35 years, Rusty Boro, F/V BeBe, has been fishing salmon for more than 35 years, most of it out of Half Moon Bay. Jim Andersen, F/V Allaine, grew up fishing salmon in Half Moon Bay, again for more than 35 years, Steve and Eric Masuda, F/V Sachiko, more than 35 years. Bill Webb, F/V Cricket, more than 35 years, Gary Thurston, F/V Becky Ann, lifetime fisherman, Bob Berry, F/V Donald B, grew up fishing on the boat with his dad, and now fishes it with his wife, Mary Alice. Hopefully, you get the point. We knew what we were doing, and mostly what we were doing was fishing, not catching. All the other ports had similarly staffed vessels with long time salmon fishermen at the helm.

In my opinion, there are not enough salmon along this California coast to allow any commercial or sports fishery. I believe that a multi-year closure would give these fish a chance to rebound. We’ve seen this work with the improved coho salmon runs and we’ve seen management of the Klamath stocks show positive results. These closures should be commercial, sport, and complete.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Superior Court in San Francisco on Wednesday, December 1 will hear a court challenge to salmon-killing water diversion permits approved by the California Department of Fish and Game on the Scott and Shasta Rivers on September 22, 2009.

Attorneys Wendy Park and Greg Loarie will be in court challenging the permitting programs that are driving endangered wild coho salmon extinct. The de-watering of the two major Klamath River tributaries has resulted in major fish kills over the years. During the past two years, DFG staff were forced to rescue juvenile salmon from certain death in drying pools on the rivers.

The attorneys are representing the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, Klamath Riverkeeper, the Sierra Club, the Quartz Valley Indian Tribe, Northcoast Environmental Center and Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) in the case.

"The permits would allow the 'incidental take' (i.e., killing) of coho by agriculture, so long as these water users abide by a list of generic, unstudied, and inadequate mitigation measures," said Park. "Ultimately, the permits allow the continuation of the destructive activities that resulted in the collapse of the coho fishery in the first place."

Local ranchers divert so much water from both rivers to grow hay that the rivers often dry up during part of the year, according to Park. Coho salmon that historically spawned in these two rivers are at, or close to, extinction.

"The California Department of Fish and Game is issuing permits to ranchers to continue dewatering the rivers based on historic diversion levels which leave baby salmon high and dry and block the return of adult fish to spawn," Park added. "Last year only nine adult coho salmon returned to the Shasta River to spawn."

In April 2010, water conditions on the Scott and Shasta became so inhospitable that DFG staff relocated what few endangered coho salmon could still be found in the two rivers, transplanting them dozens of miles down the mainstem Klamath River to supposed safety.

"At this point, coho are so close to extinction and the Scott and Shasta are so severely dewatered each year that this type of rescue action may be warranted, but it cannot be a substitute for rewatering, and in the long term it's not likely to be a viable survival strategy for coho in these basins," said Klamath Riverkeeper Erica Terence. "It's a band-aid solution at best on what has become a major water hemorrhage."

NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries and Spain’s Ministry of Culture announced today the signing of a memorandum of understanding outlining a framework to jointly identify, protect, manage and preserve underwater cultural resources of mutual interest within their respective areas of responsibility.

The arrangement calls for the exchange of information on actual or potential identification and location of underwater cultural resources, research and archeological examination of the resources, provision of information concerning potential or actual unauthorized disturbances of underwater cultural resources, cooperation with nongovernmental organizations engaged in historical or archeological programs compatible with the objectives of the arrangement, and preparation and dissemination of educational and outreach materials.

“Today marks the beginning of a more formal and active interaction between NOAA and Spain as we learn from each other’s archives and share that information for a better understanding and appreciation of Spain’s important maritime cultural legacy in America,” said Daniel J. Basta, director of NOAA’s National Marine Sanctuary Program.

“The heritage spawned by Spain’s interactions with the sea and the exploration and settlement of our coasts by Spanish mariners dates back 500 years,” said James P. Delgado, Ph.D., NOAA National Marine Sanctuary Maritime Heritage Program director. “This arrangement will give us access to the incredible records in the archives and libraries of Spain.”

An example of the type of work that will benefit from the new arrangement is the discovery of a wreck that may be the Spanish ship San Agustin, which was lost in November 1595 in the California waters of the Gulf of Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and Point Reyes National Seashore. The U.S. National Park Service located an offshore wreck site during a survey of Drakes Bay in 1982-1983. No excavation of the buried wreck site offshore has been done to confirm that it is all or a portion of the lost galleon. The National Marine Sanctuary Program, working with partners in Spain as well as the Park Service, will have a strengthened ability to discuss appropriate actions to better understand and document that shipwreck in the future.

“Out of respect for the law of this land, the Broughton First Nations and future generations, we recognize that the land tenures under the salmon feedlots in Broughton have expired. We the under-signed affirm that the region known as the Broughton Archipelago (between and including Kingcome and Knight Inlets and west through Drury Inlet) is therefore legally salmon feedlot-free. We call on the Province of British Columbia to honour this reality that they caused by not renewing the salmon feedlot leases and remove the feedlot equipment from Broughton so that wild fish can thrive in these waters to the benefit of all.”

While the BC government appears to support salmon feedlots in the ocean, they have not renewed the land tenure agreements that give each feedlot legal access to anchor over the seafloor in the Broughton Archipelago.

“Some of these operations have not had a valid tenure for several years,” says BC biologist, Alexandra Morton. “They are operating on a month-to-month arrangement. This is rather huge. No one can figure out why and that concerns us.”

It is unclear whether the problem is failure to win First Nations approval, failure to clear Transport Canada, constitutional matters that prohibit privatization of ocean spaces, or liability issues. But as it stand the Broughton Archipelago is legally salmon feedlot-free.

On December 18, as per a BC Supreme Court ruling, the province must hand management of the salmon feedlot industry back to the Federal Government, which gave it to BC unlawfully in 1988. Federal authorizations to operate will be issued, but the land tenures agreements (or lack of) will remain with the province.

“How can the federal government authorize an industrial activity that appears unable to get legal tenure to the physical sites they occupy,” asks Morton? “Legally, constitutionally and biologically this industry never quite fits and we in the Broughton live with the day-to-day consequences of this. If the province can’t tenure this industry what is it doing in the ocean? Legally Broughton is salmon feedlot-free and the province needs to own up to that.”

Preliminary estimates from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game on the 2010 commercial salmon harvest and its value show that harvesters of wild salmon took home their largest paychecks in 18 years.

The preliminary 2010 estimate indicates that the harvest generated $533.9 million for those paychecks, the highest ex-vessel value of any season since 1992, with Bristol bay and Prince William Sound accounting for 55 percent of the total value of all salmon harvested.

The ADF&G report, issued Nov. 8, notes that preliminary 2010 statewide average prices showed an increase for all species of salmon compared to final 2009 prices. “The increase continues a strong recovery trend from the low salmon prices of 2002,” researchers said. Final 2010 prices for all salmon species may be higher yet, once post-season adjustments and end-of-season bonuses are paid to fishermen.

The harvest of 168.6 million pounds of all salmon species in Alaska is the 11th largest harvest since statehood, up 5.6 million fish over the 2009 harvest of 162.9 million fish, 31.3 million fish above the preseason forecast of 137.3 million fish, and 1.1 million fish above the most recent 10-year average commercial harvest of 167.5 million salmon.

The Bristol Bay sockeye salmon harvest of 28.6 million fish was likewise the 11th largest harvest in the Bay since statehood. While the 2010 sockeye catch was 2.3 million fish fewer than the 2009 total, the ex-vessel value of $148.7 million was $4.5 million higher than the 2009 value.

In Prince William Sound, harvesters set a record with a harvest of 75.4 million salmon. That’s 44.5 percent of all the salmon harvested statewide this year. The total included a pink salmon harvest of 69 million fish, a record high for Prince William Sound, which accounted for 66 percent of the state’s total pink salmon harvest for 2010.

The chum salmon harvest, the 8th highest since statehood, came in at 18.2 million fish, with an ex-vessel value of $92.7 million. That’s the second highest value for a chum salmon harvest since 1975.

The report will be revised and finalized once ADF&G receives all fish ticket data and annual processor reports that include final prices paid for all salmon this year.

For the details on numbers and pounds of fish, average fish weight, average price per pound and ex-vessel value for each salmon species by area and statewide, check under “2010 Preliminary Season Summary” on the ADF&G website (www.cf.adfg.state.ak.us).

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

A coalition of commercial fishing, native, and conservation groups announced the launch of their website www.fishbasket.org which will serve as an information center for groups and individuals seeking permanent protection for Bristol Bay from offshore oil and gas drilling.

In March of this year, prior to the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration removed Bristol Bay from the federal offshore and gas leasing schedule until 2017. But, given Bristol Bay’s rich fishery, the coalition believes area deserves permanent protection from the inherent risks of offshore oil drilling. Bristol Bay fisheries are valued at more than $2 billion annually and sustainably support thousands of jobs, whereas the estimated value for finite oil and gas in the area is only $7 billion over the life of the field, the association says.

While most Americans know that making a false 911 call is illegal, a false distress call to the US Coast Guard is also a crime.

Recently a Detroit resident was convicted and sentenced in federal court for making a false distress call to the US Coast Guard, according to United States Attorney Barbara McQuade and Captain Stephen Torpey, Chief of Incident Management for the Ninth Coast Guard District.

Andre D. Cheatom, 19 years old, was sentenced to 18 months incarceration, supervised release for three years, a special assessment of $100.00, and ordered to pay $14,302 in restitution for knowingly and willfully causing the Coast Guard to attempt to save lives and property when no help was needed, in violation of Title 14, U.S. Code, section 88(c).

“When members of the Coast Guard respond to a hoax call, they are diverted from people in actual distress,” McQuade said. “We take a hard line on these cases because we want to deter people from making hoax calls.”

“I am concerned that there are people willing to risk the lives of other boaters who might be in legitimate need of rescue or assistance, as well as needlessly endangering response crews, by knowingly making a false distress call,” said Captain Stephen Torpey, Chief of Incident Management for the Ninth Coast Guard District. “This conviction demonstrates the lengths we will go to ensure those who make hoax calls are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Commercial bluefin tuna fishermen and the lawmakers who represent them in Washington are sparring with federal regulators over a statement made in Paris last week by the top US oceans official.

On Nov. 19, Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told Reuters that the US government supports cuts in the commercial fishing quota for bluefin tuna in both the western and Eastern Atlantic Ocean.

"When there is uncertainty in science we believe that it is important to err on the side of caution. We believe that it is appropriate therefore to seek lower TACs (total allowable catches) for bluefin tuna for both sides of the Atlantic," said Lubchenco, who was attending a meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, the international body that sets catch limits on bluefin tuna.

Bluefin are a highly migratory species that range from the Canary Islands near the coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico and are prized by the Japanese for sushi and sashimi. There are two main bluefin tuna fisheries; the Eastern Atlantic fishery, which includes the Mediterranean Sea and is where most tuna are caught, and the Western Atlantic fishery, which includes US and Canadian fishermen.

Lubchenco's comment sparked a sharp response from US fishermen, who say fisheries officials have failed to recognize that the sacrifices of US bluefin tuna fishermen in recent years have helped rebuild stocks in the Western Atlantic.

And they say US fishermen have long abided by strict catch limits despite rampant overfishing in the Eastern Atlantic by foreign vessels feeding a booming tuna aquaculture industry. Boats fishing in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean hail from countries such as France, Italy, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia and Malta.

"We have paid the price to restore this resource. And we ask for the government to reward US fishermen," said Rich Ruais, executive director of the American Bluefin Tuna Association. "We are coming off a period of very painful, incredible abuse by the Eastern Atlantic and European community."

US Lawmakers also criticized Lubchenco's comment.

"By suggesting that reductions ... are warranted in both the eastern and western Atlantic, NOAA is effectively selling out US fishermen who for years have adhered to strict catch limits and conservation measures now proven to have boosted the health of the bluefin population," said Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) in a statement. "Our fishermen operate under the world's strictest management regime, and their sacrifices are largely responsible for the optimism found in the most recent scientific assessment for Western Atlantic bluefin."

By some estimates, Western Atlantic bluefin tuna stocks are improving. According to the ICATT report, one scientific model shows bluefin in the Western Atlantic have more than a 90 percent chance of recovering even if the Western Atlantic quota is increased to 2,000 tons.

Based on that estimate, the industry and lawmakers are seeking more quota.

"Our quota and other conservation restrictions are paying off ... We believe the US delegation should fight to increase the TAC in the west to 2,250 metric tons, which will still allow for a very high probability of success within the time frame outlined by the plan," said a Nov. 7 ABTA letter to the US ICCAT delegation.

Ten lawmakers echoed ABTA's stance in a Nov. 18 letter to Lubchenco.

"We wish to request that the US delegation pursue a modest, yet scientifically justifiable increase in the total allowable catch of Western Atlantic bluefin tuna," said the letter, which was signed by Senators Snowe, Collins, Shaheen, and Scott Brown, and Representatives Frank, Michaud, Pingree, Lynch, Tierney, and Delahunt.

According to ICCAT's 2010 report, fishermen in the Eastern Atlantic are estimated to have landed some 61,000 tons of bluefin tuna in 2007, more than double their quota.

The agency believes catches in the region were also much higher than allowed in the preceding years, due to "substantial under-reporting" of landings. The report did note that monitoring and enforcement have resulted in a "substantial decrease in the catch" in 2008 and 2009.

Meanwhile, US and Canadian fishermen have been restricted to substantially lower catch levels, have largely fished within their quotas. The 2009 Western Atlantic total allowable catch was 1,900 tons; in 2010, the limit dropped to 1,800 tons.

And US fishermen say foreign overfishing directly impacts their livelihoods. That's because bluefin tuna are highly migratory, and many travel across the ocean, mingling between the eastern and western stocks, according to ICCAT.

"Fishing in Mediterranean has an impact on the western Atlantic. We can't rebuild the west all ourselves," said Ruais. "We have been spinning our wheels making great economic sacrifices, but have been handicapped."

Despite support from Washington, Ruais isn't optimistic that US fishermen will see an increase in quota.

A letter, below, gives a real-life, firsthand account of the perils of the new electronically controlled marine diesels being mandated by the Environmental Protection Agency for installation in fishing boats. In his Toolbox column this month, David Rowland gives his own firsthand account of the process involved in holding a sea trial of a boat with one of these engines. A counterpoint is offered by a paper published recently by Alaska Sea Grant entitled, Does Diesel Have a Future in the Fishing Industry?

The piece, authored by Greg Fisk, owner of SeaFisk Consulting, suggests several alternatives to petroleum diesel, including nuclear power and hydrogen or electric propulsion, and offers biodiesel as another alternative, including diesel made from algae. Unfortunately, admits Mr. Fisk, none of these alternatives have much likelihood of viability. His conclusion suggests that EPA-mandated low-sulphur petroleum diesel will be the most likely short-term solution, so to answer the paper’s title question, yes. This puts us back where we started, with unelected political appointees deciding the fate of the US fishing fleet.

Given the safety issues posed by the sudden failure of a main propulsion engine while at sea, do we really want a computer making the final decision on whether or not to shut down? Do we really want the EPA mandating these engines for use in fishing vessels?

Are Computer Controlled Diesel Engines Safe?In June 2009 we installed a new diesel engine in our 48-foot commercial fishing vessel. This engine performed well in the first Albacore tuna season and through the first Dungeness crab season. It had greater fuel efficiency, was quieter, and we felt we were doing our part to have cleaner air.

However, on my son's second Albacore tuna trip of 2010 the engine shut down when he was about 80 miles off shore. Finding that a fuse had blown on the computer power circuit he replaced the fuse and restarted the engine, which ran for about 30 minutes and shut down again. He once again replaced the fuse with a 20-amp fuse and it ran the rest of the day. The next morning when he started the engine it ran for about 30 seconds and shut down. He replaced the fuse with another 20-amp fuse and it blew as soon as the boat was put in gear. He replaced the fuse with a 10-amp fuse, which blew as soon as he turned on the switch. He waited 10 minutes and replaced the fuse again. The engine started and he was able to run home to Warrenton, Oregon.

We lost 2 Albacore trips during the time it took to have the problem analyzed and acquire the parts to fix it.

Fortunately our local electrician had diagnosed the same type of problem on a charter boat from the Warrenton area. He found that a faulty oil pressure gauge had caused the problem. He replaced the gauge on our vessel and my son made another Albacore trip without incident.

Since that time I have learned of 3 other vessels that have had problems with the main engine shutting down. The charter boat required a new gauge. A tuna boat required a new computer. An oyster dredge's problem was caused by a bad ground.

It is my opinion that the main engine should NEVER shut itself down. That should only be done by the operator. If an engine's computer can shut the engine down then there must be an emergency backup to enable the restart of that engine even if it is only for half power or some other speed.

As these computers, their components and the wiring to them age, these problems will happen at an ever-increasing rate.

Our boat for the most part fishes Dungeness crab as a day boat, which means we may make 150 to 200 bar crossings a year. Engine shutdown on an unfriendly or savage bar crossing could have very serious consequences.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Are you interested in working with wild salmon and helping to restore this valuable and precious resource? Washington’s Hood Canal is home to several species of salmon and is one of the last locations with viable populations in the Puget Sound region. Julie Easton, Volunteer Coordinator for the Hood Canal Salmon Enhancement Group, says they need you to help with their continued salmon recovery efforts.

“Right now, we have some of big volunteer projects going on that you could help with,” she says.

Spawner surveys: “We have teams of volunteers and staff that walk Hood Canal creeks to count dead and live salmon throughout the coho and fall chum spawning season through January 1st.”

Native Riparian Plantings: “We are working to plant native species in riparian areas where we have treated invasive weeds.”

Office Help: “We need a volunteer around the office to answer phones and enter data.”Miscellaneous Farm Projects: Painting, construction and gardening. “These are opportunities that are available year ‘round.”

Livestock Maintenance and Training: “We have dairy goats, alpacas and a llama. We are looking for volunteers with experience with these types of animals to come in and help with halter training and exercise.”

Equipment Operator: “We are looking for some experienced operators and maintainers of various farm equipment.”

“As you can see, an opportunity awaits for anyone,” says Easton. She notes that students, military personnel, college interns, home school students, Boy’s and Girl’s Club members and Scouts can earn merit and volunteer hours toward ranking and scholarship awards.” She says the experience and knowledge gained from working with the HCSEG has helped many previous and existing volunteers in obtaining gainful employment in positions with natural resource agencies. “We welcome corporations and businesses looking for local volunteer opportunities, too,” she says.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar has issued a Secretarial Order elevating the Office of the National Landscape Conservation System and Community Partnerships in the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to the level of a directorate within BLM.

“This action reflects the growing importance of the 27-million acre National Landscape Conservation System to local economies, to the health of communities, and to the conservation of some of America’s greatest landscapes,” Salazar said at the National Landscape Conservation System Summit in Las Vegas. “The BLM plays a special role in protecting America’s great outdoors for the benefit of all Americans – for it is the national conservation lands that contain the forests and canyons that families love to explore, the backcountry where children learn to hunt and fish, and the places that tell the story of our history and our cultures. Each of these places within the National Landscape Conservation System holds special meaning to the American people and is an engine for jobs and economic growth in local communities.”

This National Landscape Conservation System was established as an integral part of the Bureau of Land Management by the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, a bipartisan initiative that responded to the critical need, as the population of the West increases, to conserve open spaces that are a unique part of America’s heritage. As an integral part of the BLM’s multiple-use mission, conservation is a long-term investment that provides quality of life and economic benefits for current and future generations.

The system contains many of our Nation’s most treasured landscapes, including scientific, historic and cultural resources, wilderness and wilderness study areas, wild and scenic rivers, national monuments, national conservation areas, and scenic and historic trails, among others.

These lands are managed as an integral part of the larger landscape, in collaboration with the neighboring landowners and surrounding communities. The management objectives are to maintain biodiversity and promote ecological connectivity and resilience in the face of climate change. When consistent with the values for which they were designated, lands in the system may allow appropriate multiple uses, such as grazing, energy development and tourism.

Managers of the system recognize the importance of a diversity of viewpoints when considering management options. These nationally important landscapes are managed from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing upon the expertise of specialists throughout the BLM, and in coordination with the tribes, other Federal, state, and local government agencies, interested local landowners, adjacent communities, and other public and private interests.

The directorate will be called the National Landscape Conservation System and Community Partnerships. The Assistant Secretary – Land and Minerals Management is responsible for ensuring implementation of this Order within 120 days. This responsibility may be delegated, as appropriate.

The signing of the Secretarial Order followed Salazar’s remarks to a summit of the National Landscape Conservation System, attended by several hundred BLM officials and employees as well as non-government stakeholders and state and local representatives.

The Sakhalin Island trap net pink salmon fishery announced this week that it has entered the full assessment phase of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certification process. After more than two years of preparatory work, 11 fishing companies that annually harvest up to 21,000 metric tons of pink salmon have stepped forward.

“Entering full MSC assessment is an affirmation of our concerted efforts to conserve and sustainably manage Russia’s wild salmon resources,” said Vladimir Smirnov, head of Plavnik Co., one of the commercial fishing companies entering the program.

Howard Johnson, Global Programs Director of the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership, added, “MSC is the key to unlocking global markets for Sakhalin’s salmon fisheries. The MSC certification is becoming a ‘must-have’ for fisheries selling their products globally.”

“The MSC certification program is the gold standard eco-label for commercial fisheries worldwide and will provide significant market advantages for Sakhalin’s fisheries that are awarded the label”, said Sergei Didenko of the Sakhalin Salmon Initiative Center, one of the co-clients of the MSC assessment.

In September 2009, the Iturup Island pink and chum fishery (part of Sakhalin Oblast) became the first Russian fishery – and the first salmon fishery since Alaska – to receive the MSC certification.

“The MSC full assessment on Sakhalin points to a growing wave of interest in Russia to promote sustainable fisheries,” said Brian Caouette, Director of Sustainable Fisheries and Markets Program at the Wild Salmon Center.

The certification body, MRAG Americas, will conduct the full assessment with hopes of completion by late 2011.

The 600-mile long Sakhalin Island is located at the far eastern end of Russia, between the Tatar Strait and the Sea of Okhotsk, north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and represents 20 percent of global Pacific salmon stocks.

This project is supported by the Walton Family Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Resources Legacy Fund and the Sakhalin Energy Investment Company.

Nicole Lefebvre, a Canadian Ranger from Atlin British Columbia and Canadian Coast Guard Environmental Response Officer Mike Leonard of Hay River practice deploying boom on the shoreline of Resolute Bay, Nunavut. Ms. Lefebvre is one of 17 Rangers who received spill response training from the Canadian Coast Guard. Photo courtesy of Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

The Canadian government is using the knowledge of Arctic residents and local conditions like floating ice as a natural containment boom in response drills for the common northern hazard of diesel fuel spills.

“In some cases moving ice is going to be a problem because you have to fasten the boom like you would a fence. The mass of ice, moving through at slow currents is going to tear apart your boom,” said Larry Trigatti, superintendent of environmental response for the Canadian Coast Guard and manager of a week-long Tallurutiit spill response exercise at the island community of Resolute. Tallurutiit is an Inuktitut word that references the North West Passage.

“There are other ways you can actually use the ice to your advantage. Pack ice actually acts as a physical barrier for floating diesel. Depending on the circumstances it can be your enemy and it can be your best friend,” Trigatti said.

With a year-round population of fewer than 250 residents, Resolute is on the south coast of Cornwallis Island, about 457 miles above the Arctic Circle and 1,406 miles northeast of Barrow. About 25 Canadian Rangers, locally based military units similar to the US National Guard, and personnel from the Ministry of Indian Affairs and other Canadian agencies practiced on the shore and in coastal waters deploying containment boom, operating beach flushing systems and in assessment techniques. Assessments are “sort of pre-engineering,” Trigatti explained, which identify shoreline geography and other features and determine the level of oiling based on a predetermined scale so that appropriate equipment can be sent to the spill.

Rangers “bring unique local knowledge about the wildlife. They run safety patrols. They know the lay of land. They know the unique systems, the seasonal variances in their communities and their environments,” Trigatti said. Weather conditions for the Aug. 19-26 exercise were seasonal, with an average temperature of 41 degrees, some high winds and broken multi-year ice in Resolute Bay, he said.

Using ice as a natural spill containment boom, which Trigatti called “slotting techniques,” is standard practice on Canadian lakes. “Because oil floats what happens is it will actually collect in those areas and you can use a skimmer to recover it. You don’t need a boom,” he said.

Like Alaska, the vast distances, lack of transportation infrastructure and quickly changing weather can prevent responders to any emergency from reaching the scene for days or weeks. In addition to local training, Canada’s response includes pre-positioning of 19 spill response community packs in Arctic villages.

Each pack contains three response kits. Kits include enough boom, beach wash and other equipment to respond to a five ton or 1,320 gallon diesel spill. “We have a quick response that’s going to deal with source control and be able to protect local priorities in the zero to 48-hour time frame,” Trigatti said.

Local response capability is critical because the CCG’s primary storage base for spill response gear is in Hay River, Northwest Territories, 994 miles and a full day’s loading and flight time from Resolute. The village can have several million gallons of diesel fuel in storage at any given time and larger communities may have tens of millions of gallons for heating and electrical generation.

Privately owned aircraft carrying RAT, or rapid air transportable response packages from the Hay River base need landing strips at least 3,000 feet long, but kits must be repackaged to reach smaller communities.

The CCG has no heavy lift aircraft. It would use contract or spot charter planes for most spill response transport, but could get help from the Canadian Air Force for larger incidents Trigatti said.

Unlike the United States, Canada does not use dispersants to respond to hydrocarbon spills. “We don’t factor in a capacity for dispersants in our planning right now. We’re focused on the physical removal of the product. It’s the skimming. It’s dealing with the physical properties of the pollutants, not with the chemical at this point,” Trigatti said.

Canada began placing community packs in the mid-1990s and has been expanding its spill response capability ever since. “There’s so much more to the exercise or to the deployments than just the boom in the water. It’s how you held your people, how you assessed the human resources that you need. It’s a three-pronged approach, maintaining the infrastructure, having the personnel available and then having the equipment to do the heavy lifting,” Trigatti said.

Gail Shea, federal minister of fisheries and oceans, said Tallurutiit was intended “to make sure we are as prepared as possible. The Canadian Coast Guard is very much aware of the unique marine environmental sensitivities in the Arctic. Our training was an opportunity for all responders to work together to improve communications and coordination for potential responses to pollution incidents in Canadian Arctic waters.”

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

According to news accounts from Fox News and the Associated Press, the Interior Department's inspector general says the White House edited a drilling safety report in a way that made it falsely appear that scientists and experts supported the administration's six-month ban on new drilling.

The inspector general says the editing changes resulted "in the implication that the moratorium recommendation had been peer reviewed." But it hadn't been. The scientists were only asked to review new safety measures for offshore drilling.

The investigation is the latest in a string of incidents where the Obama administration has been accused of overstating the science behind official reports and political decisions made after the massive Gulf oil spill.

Last month, staff for the presidential oil spill commission said that the White House's budget office delayed publication of a report by federal scientists that forecast how much oil could potentially reach the Gulf's shores. Federal scientists initially used a volume of oil that did not account for the administration's various cleanup efforts. A smaller volume was ultimately presented.

The same report said that President Barack Obama's energy adviser, Carol Browner, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration head Jane Lubchenco contributed to the public's perception that a government report on where the oil had gone was more exact than it was by emphasizing peer review. Browner, the commission's staff said, also mischaracterized the analysis on national TV, saying it showed most of the oil was "gone." The report said it could still be there.

"There was no intent to mislead the public," said Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for Salazar, who also recommended in the May 27 safety report that a moratorium be placed on deepwater oil and gas exploration. "The decision to impose a temporary moratorium on deepwater drilling was made by the secretary, following consultation with colleagues including the White House."

The Interior Department, after one of the reviewers complained about the inference, promptly issued an apology during a conference call, with a letter and personal meeting in June.

At least eight of the 15 experts asked to review the Interior Department's work expressed concern about the change made by the White House, saying that it differed in important ways from the draft they had signed off on. But the experts also questioned the basis for the drilling ban.

"We believe the report does not justify the moratorium as written and that the moratorium as changed will not contribute measurably to increased safety and will have immediate and long-term economic effects," the scientists wrote in a fax sent to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, and Louisiana Sens. Mary Landrieu and David Vitter, earlier this year. "The secretary should be free to recommend whatever he thinks is correct, but he should not be free to use our names to justify his political decisions."

A federal judge in New Orleans struck down the Interior Department's first moratorium in June, saying the government didn't justify it, and ruled that the department improperly issued safety rules because it issued them without soliciting public comment.

The numbers of fall run chinook salmon returning to spawn in the Sacramento River and its tributaries to date are significantly better than the record low returns of last year, although the numbers are well below the banner run of 2002 when nearly 800,000 fish returned to the system.

Last year only 39,530 fall chinooks returned to Central Valley rivers. Fishing was closed in the Sacramento and tributaries in 2008 and 2009, with the exception of targeted season for late fall chinooks on the Sacramento, due to the unprecedented fishery collapse.

However, a pre-season estimate of 245,000 fish by the National Marine Fisheries Service spurred the state and federal government fishery agencies to allow limited recreational fishing for fall chinooks on the Feather, American and Sacramento rivers this year, as well as restricted recreational and commercial ocean salmon seasons.

Fishermen, environmentalists and independent scientists pointed to water exports out of the California Delta, declining water quality and poor freshwater management as the key factors behind the collapse. On the other hand, state and federal government representatives repeatedly claimed that poor ocean conditions were the likely culprit, although they admitted that other factors played a role as well.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Coleman National Fish Hatchery on Battle Creek is seeing a much better run this fall, well over twice of last year’s dismal return.

“We’re past the three-quarter mark in the run and we estimate 22,000 fish have returned to date, including 11,000 adults and 11,000 jacks, between the hatchery and the river,” said Brett Galtean, assistant hatchery manager. “Last year we had 9,000 total salmon including 719 jacks (two-year-old fish). The surprising number of jacks gives us hope for a really good year next fall.”

So far the hatchery has taken 14,250,000 eggs. “We target taking 14,000,000 to 15,000,000 eggs annually, but we will continue to spawn fish into this month,” explained Scott Hamelburg, hatchery manager. “As long as the fish keep coming, we will continue to take fish to get full genetic representation of the entire run.” The Feather River hatchery is also seeing much better salmon numbers than last year. The total adult salmon count to date is 14,523 adults compared to 5367 last year, reported A.J. Dill, assistant hatchery manager. The two-year-old (jack and jill) count to date is 2417 fish, compared to 3429 last fall.

The Mokelumne River salmon run is also much better than last year’s dismal run. The 4,070 fish counted to date at Woodbridge Dam are already about twice as many as were counted last year.

The Mokelumne River Fish Hatchery as of November 4 has trapped 1,267 salmon, including 614 adults and 653 jacks. Last year the facility to date received 341 fish, including 167 adults and 174 jacks.

Although the run is nothing like the run of 2005, when the hatchery trapped 8,219 salmon, the salmon population is definitely on the upswing.

“We’re happy – the run is headed back in the right direction,” said Will Smith, hatchery manager. “We will probably meet our mitigation goal of 3.4 million salmon smolts (juveniles), but we are unlikely to meet our enhancement goal totaling 5.4 million fish.”

Smith attributes the increased salmon run to the East Bay Municipal Utility District’s release of pulse flows up to 2400 cfs below Camanche Dam in October to attract the fish upriver to the hatchery, rather than going up the American and other rivers. He said that the two day closure of the gates of the Delta Cross Channel, a canal that connects the Mokelumne River with the Sacramento River, also help reduced straying.

Bob Burks, Nimbus Fish Hatchery manager, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the run size on the American River will meet expectations and more than enough salmon will be available for spawning and angling.

“We opened the fish ladder on November 1 and spawned our first batch of fish on November 2,” said Burks. “DFG staffer Paula Hoover did an aerial survey of the river and saw a few ribbons of fish holding downriver, although the majority of fish can be found between Sunrise and the hatchery.”

Over the next few months, Nimbus Hatchery staff plan to spawn between 5,000 and 7,000 adult salmon, taking up to eight million eggs. The hatchery traditionally releases four million young Chinook salmon (smolts) each spring.

“It is encouraging to see the both the adult and jack salmon counts increase this year, but the Central Valley salmon fishery is still in a state of disaster,” said Dick Pool, coordinator of Water 4 Fish, an organization working to restore salmon and other fish populations. “Until the run reaches 200,000 fish again, the fishery will continue to hang on the brink of survival.”

Pool noted that he was disappointed that the Bureau of Reclamation has failed to heed the advice of fishing and environmental groups and Members of Congress to close the Delta Cross Channel gates for 14 days starting October 4. When the gates are open, chinook salmon stray into the Sacramento system rather than going up the Mokelumne and other rivers of their birth.

Pool also said that although the ocean survival of salmon has increased because of improved forage and water conditions, the many problems that fall run and other Central Valley chinook populations face because of Delta water exports and poor freshwater management still remain to be addressed.

Anglers and biologists are hopeful that the Sacramento River fall run chinook spawning escapement will meet its conservation goal of 180,000 fish this year, an indication that the run is on its way to recovery from the record low years of 2007, 2008 and 2009.

NOAA last week released a national policy encouraging the consideration and use of catch shares, a fishery management tool that has shown it can help rebuild fisheries and sustain fishermen, communities, vibrant working waterfronts and culturally important fishing traditions.

“Catch share programs have proven to be powerful tools to transform fisheries, making them prosperous, stable and sustainable parts of our nation’s strategy for healthy and resilient ocean ecosystems,” said Jane Lubchenco, Ph.D., under secretary of commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator . “NOAA’s policy encourages fishery management councils and stakeholders to explore the design possibilities of catch shares to tailor programs to best meet local needs.”

Catch share programs, which include limited access privilege programs and individual fishing quotas, dedicate a secure share of fish to individual fishermen, cooperatives or fishing communities. Catch shares are used in 14 fisheries managed by six fishery management councils from Alaska to Florida and are being developed in additional fisheries. Both here and in other countries, catch shares are helping eliminate overfishing and achieve annual catch limits, improve fishermen’s safety and profits, and reduce the negative biological and economic effects of the race for fish that develops with some traditional fishery management.

After considering extensive public comment on its draft policy, NOAA added several important guiding principles to the policy, including a recommendation that regional fishery management councils periodically revisit allocations between commercial and recreational sectors in fisheries.

The policy also does not advocate individual catch shares for private recreational anglers. Councils will have NOAA support to consider catch share programs for charter boat and head boat sectors to explore recreational catch share pools that could benefit the health of the resource and the charter industry.

“The purpose of this policy is to provide a strong foundation for the widespread consideration of catch shares, which have proven to be an effective tool to help rebuild fisheries,” said Monica Medina, principal deputy under secretary for oceans and atmosphere. “ The key to a successful catch share program is extensive stakeholder involvement in the design of catch shares that take into consideration each community’s particular fishing traditions and goals.”

David Walker, a commercial fisherman who is part of the Gulf of Mexico red snapper individual fishing quota program, has seen how a catch share program can transform a fishery.

“This program has been a phenomenal success for the fish, and when you take care of the fish, you take care of the fishermen,” said Walker, who fishes from the homeport of Destin, Fla. “Before the program began in 2007, we were having to fish under derbies and having to go farther and farther to fish. We were getting fewer and fewer days as efforts were intensifying. Everyone raced for the fish and we were fishing in weather conditions that were dangerous at times. Fishing under the IFQ program implemented in 2007 has been a blessing to us. Now we have a year round season with very few discards. Fish prices are good. And the fish stock is rebuilding.”

On the West Coast, Steve Bodnar, the executive director of the Coos Bay Trawler Association, has been working with the Pacific Fishery Management Council to help develop a catch share program for the West Coast bottomfish trawl fishery.

“We’re on the edge of doing something great,” said Bodnar, who represents a group of fishermen based in Coos Bay, Oregon, who own and fish from nine trawlers. “This program is opening up communication between fishermen who were used to working alone. We're going to swap quota to keep as many boats on the water in order to keep our port whole. We’ll also work together to share resources, to develop gear that will avoid fish that are not as abundant and catch the healthier stocks, and to market our catch to help consumers support local fishermen. By working together, we will survive.”

2014 cover

Founded in 1945, Fishermen's News is the oldest commercial fishing publication on the Pacific Coast, and the only independently owned commercial fishing publication in the market.
We focus on small business issues as they affect the independent commercial fisherman, and are uniquely tailored to the individual commercial vessel owner.
Only Fishermen's News consistently and steadfastly advocates on behalf of these independent commercial fishermen.